Hacker News Reader

Comment by davexunit | Hacker News Reader

The GPL does not taint anything. People like to use pejorative terms like that, or "viral", to make the GPL seem like something that spreads on its own. It is a software license like any other, and every developer can make the decision of whether or not they want to use software available under those terms.

The rest of your reply reiterates the usual developer focused "open source" viewpoint while mistakenly suggesting that it's also the focus of free software. The goal of free software has always been user freedom. Source code in the hands of users. It's not about upstream contributions. Having a free library used in a proprietary program does not advance user freedom, though it may lead to a developer improving the library. All the upstream contributions in the world simply do not matter if the user is not entitled to the complete source code of the programs that they use.

View on HN

> The GPL does not taint anything. People like to use pejorative terms like that, or "viral", to make the GPL seem like something that spreads on its own. It is a software license like any other, and every developer can make the decision of whether or not they want to use software available under those terms.

You greatly overestimate the skill and interest a lot of developers have in the niceties of source code licensing. I've had to remind colleagues more than once that the code they want to appropriate can't be used in our code base because of license incompatibilities.

Are engineers in other fields so completely clueless about the copyright, trademark, and patent laws that apply to their work? Big software companies confuse the issue for others by openwashing (many do not know that "open source" is a well defined term), "intellectual property", etc.

> Are engineers in other fields so completely clueless about the copyright, trademark, and patent laws that apply to their work?

Sorry but I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. In other engineering fields, there's no equivalent to copyleft licenses (at least that I know of) for designs/processes so it's not an issue.

The GPL does not taint anything.

What do you prefer to call what it does to anything it is compiled with?

A choice made by the developer to fulfill the terms of the license for code those chose to include in their project because it brought more value than other options or them writing it.

Taint is shorter.

BTW: I think you answered a different question than the one I asked.

Taint is pejorative. Why must you choose negative terms to describe copyleft? Words matter, and words like "taint" and "viral" have been chosen for the purpose of harming copyleft's reputation.

Kind of agree. But what do you call it that describes it in a non-pejorative way?

I am thankful for GPL and GPL-ed sw. I just find some of the advocacy for it a bit annoying.

> Why must you choose negative terms to describe copyleft?

Because there's an unfortunate kernel of truth to it?

From the standpoint of people using any other license, copyleft code (intentionally) causes an undesirable side effect of attaching its license terms to your code base if the slightest bit of it is merged in, whether through a developer's carelessness, ignorance, or otherwise. And the effects may not be noticed for quite some time. It takes vigilance and developer education to prevent this from happening. One struggles to think of a term that doesn't have pejorative connotations to describe this effect. I have yet to see anyone suggest a credible alternative.

(And please don't suggest "protective"; that's so transparently doublespeak that it's surprising that it ever took off. Things that are protective don't just reach out and latch onto other things they are accidentally brought into contact with.)

EDIT: minor rewording for clarity

You make it sound like the code does this itself!

It doesn't reach out, it grants you a ton of rights in exchange for you preserving those rights downstrea. in projects you use it in.

If that is not a good tradeoff for you, don't use it.

You make it sound like an active, infectious agent.

You do bring up a good point and I've adjusted the wording to reflect that active agency (i.e. a developer) is involved. Nevertheless, as I pointed out in an earlier post, quite a number of developers are not educated in the specifics of open source licenses or IP law or even simply don't care and this can cause problems in codebases that aren't copyleft licensed.

Yes, this is something I've seen around quite a lot.

There's some just don't know, some take the attitude "it's on the net so I can use it" and then I've encountered people who are scared into going to the other extreme - linux is GPL therefore we have to release our software product on BSD if we don't want to open source the whole thing!

Some of the big corporates are quite hot on education in this area, but their actual FOSS-related proceses can be byzantine and weird.

I think I answered the asked question. By using the GPL the developer is choosing to have the rest of their application abide by the GPL, just like the LGPL or MIT/BSD licenses. The later examples require fewer changes, however, but in principle you're still abiding by the license.

I asked what you call the thing that GPL-ed software do - not whose choice it was etc.

Basically: "if you compile GPL-licensed sw with your code the GPL-ed code <something something> so your code becomes GPL-licensed as well."

Not true, your code does not "become" GPL.

IF you release your code it will be in violation of the GPL and you can: unpublish the release, or switch to a different non-GPL codebase, or reimplement the GPL part, or ask the authors to give you a dispensation or switch your code to GPL.

IF you don't release it and use the code internally you are fine.

It's at least 6 options, only one of which requires licensing your code as GPL.

I doesn't do anything. By including a GPL-licensed work into your software, you promise not to place any additional restrictions on the result.

And it's really just that. It doesn't force any license on your code. You can still release your individual contributions under a BSD-style license[1]. The one thing you can't do is placing additional restrictions onto your peers.

[1] The combined work may be effectively distributable only under GPL-like terms, of course.

The GPL enforces users' freedom. The BSD/MIT licenses allow for users' freedom. Proprietary restrictive licenses prevent users' freedom.

Right, so why is everyone surprised that businesses don't like GPL? More power to the user = less power to the company. Companies don't like to give power to the user - they like to be in full control of UX.

I think a lot of modern tech companies are quite comfortable with the GPL. For the simple reasons that none of the restrictions affect them because they don't distribute binaries: their software all resides on servers (excluding the limited amount of javascript they serve to users).

The AGPL on the other hand, now that really is a hated licence: https://opensource.google.com/docs/using/agpl-policy/

>WARNING: Code licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) MAY NOT be used at Google.

>Using AGPL software requires that anything it links to must also be licensed under the AGPL. Even if you think you aren’t linking to anything important, it still presents a huge risk to Google because of how integrated much of our code is. The risks heavily outweigh the benefits.

>Do not attempt to check AGPL-licensed code into google3 or use it in a Google product in any way.

>Do not install AGPL-licensed programs on your workstation, Google-issued laptop, or Google-issued phone without explicit authorization from the Open Source Programs Office.

You are confusing companies that produce Open Source software (many of them are actually happy with the GPL) and those who want to consume Open Source, use it in closed products or services and give back little.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com